


Academic Achievement

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 07:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17997800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Blair's memories of Chancellors before Edwards





	Academic Achievement

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday prompt 'arrogant'

Academic Achievement

by Bluewolf

When Blair first went to Rainier as an over-achieving 16-year-old, he found  that Chancellor Maxwell was a friendly, grandfatherly person, very approachable and helpful if you were a hard-working student. Anyone who tried to take advantage of that friendly nature, however, quickly learned his - or her - mistake; he had no patience with laziness, and the few students who thought that their sports grants or their fathers' money would 'earn' them easy, unworked-for high grades were soon disabused of the idea.

Yes, it was the lecturers - full professors or mere TAs - who set the exams and graded them, but Maxwell kept a conscientious eye on everyone, and seemed to have an instinct for knowing when a student was trying to take advantage.

It didn't take Blair long to realize that Maxwell kept a firmer eye on the freshmen than he did on the older students. One in his class didn't last long; despite waving his father's wealth in everyone's face - or, rather, because of that - his stay at Rainier was measured in weeks, and when his father tried to buy off Maxwell, he found himself the target of some negative publicity that - because it did hit home - was very unpleasant.

But Chancellor Maxwell was nearly seventy, a man with no interests outside his work; he had stated, several years previously, that he wanted to die in harness - and he did. Less than a year after Blair went to Rainier, Maxwell's secretary took some papers in for him to sign, and found him lying slumped over his desk. He had suffered a heart attack, and had died almost instantly - fully an hour before he was found.

He was succeeded by Chancellor Roberts, another very reasonable man who appreciated hard-working students and gave them every opportunity to expand their knowledge. But he, too, was elderly, and after some three years in the position, he chose to retire.

It was a fairly open secret that Rainier's Powers That Be wanted a younger Chancellor. Yes, Maxwell and Roberts had both been excellent Chancellors, but both had been mainly concerned with maintaining Rainier's reputation as a university that produced outstanding results. They hadn't been too bothered about additional funding in the form of gifts from a rich parent.  Someone among TPTB wanted more than just academic excellence; he, she or they wanted additional money too, and were willing to appoint someone who would turn a blind eye to a lazy student, getting money from the parents in exchange for Junior getting a passing grade and a degree.

They thought a younger Chancellor would fit that requirement.

And so Rainier found itself with Chancellor Edwards.

She was arrogant, and the staff soon learned that she thought money was more important than academic brilliance. Indeed, she seemed to positively dislike the students who did well, and the professors and TAs whose teaching was inspired.

And it didn't take her long to insist that the average-D son of a wealthy businessman who was offering Rainier some state-of-the-art computer equipment should have his grades improved to a C.

Eli Stoddard objected quite vocally about giving a student he described as 'a lazy brat well able to earn an honest C' (the boy wasn't stupid but because he was so lazy he would never make much of a success at whatever he did) a grade he hadn't worked for. Edwards' response was that getting some equipment for the more able students was worth giving the boy a C, and 'if you don't like it you know what to do'. His resignation was on Edwards' desk within half an hour.

Even losing one of Rainier's more prestigious professors wasn't enough to lessen Edwards' arrogance. She was the boss, and she was determined to be seen as a decisive one.

The TAs suffered most. They weren't in a position to rebel openly.

If she had played favorites it might have been possible for one of them to do something - one of the TAs was the nephew of one of TPTB, and he was willing enough to go to his uncle - if he had had a legitimate complaint. But she didn't play favorites; it seemed that she despised everyone who wasn't in administration.

A very new TA - he got the position just before Roberts retired -  Blair found that she seemed to have a particular dislike of him, though he wasn't sure why. One of the others suggested that it had something to do with Stoddard, who had never made any secret of thinking that Blair was destined for great things in anthropology; that because Stoddard had removed himself from her reach, she was expressing the hatred she had for him by making life difficult for Blair. There was nothing direct that she could do, because Blair's grades had always been excellent and he was already well-known for being an excellent teacher.

Some three years later, she thought she had found an opportunity to get rid of Blair over Brad Ventriss, and had to backpedal when he was found guilty of murder. But she succeeded when Blair claimed to have put fraudulent data in his dissertation, even though he had never submitted it to Rainier.

That was the point at which Norrie Conquest went to his uncle.

Conquest senior knew William Ellison very well; he went to see him, had a short discussion with him, and at the next meeting of the University Board suggested that Edwards was not acting in Rainier's best interests, giving the names of several professors who had followed Stoddard elsewhere - he also cited Blair, "An able and conscientious student whose work was misrepresented and with her collusion quoted out of context, leaving him with no option but to dismiss his work as fraudulent."

It turned out that several of the Board members had been feeling doubtful about her for some time, and Edwards was dismissed.

It was Conquest's suggestion that Stoddard be contacted and offered the position of Chancellor... and Rainier once again had a chancellor who valued academic achievement over money.


End file.
